Having lived the life that he had, Equinox didn't really have much opportunities to learn things. But by sneaking from place to place, there were a few important knowledge he had managed to pick up back on Svarga, and imprint in his brain.
Knowledge is power, right? Maybe. He wouldn't know since no one would even stick around to listen to him rant about his fractured crappy wisdom.
All he knew was that the ignorant were the first to perish. That too, with the feeling that life was unfair and that they deserved a second chance, after they've finally seen the consequences.
But life doesn't give second chances. That's what he knows. Look at where he is at!
After all those times of fighting against the natural order of things, he's finally getting weeded out by nature... by the Omen.
But truly, the only way a cockroach can bring people happiness is if it just drops dead.
The sharp tip of the scythe barely missed his head, punching into his right eye to come out from the side of its socket.
Ikky had dodged unconsciously. Not every part of him had given up on his pathetic life yet.
'Pathetic?' Rolling across the ground, away from the beast, a bitter taste spread over his tongue. Since when had he started talking to himself like that?
Taking quiet breaths, he lay on the ground and stared at the ceiling of the cave.
Fearing that the spider spirit might hear his raging heartbeat, Ikky cried for it to stop.
'I don't want to die... I can't! Calm down, I...'
The spider spirit's eyes had been gouged out by something, but it could still hear very well. He had confirmed that she could not see him when she only chased after him earlier after he had scratched his body against the rocky ground.
So all he could really do for now was lay and pray... pray in fear that the Deceiver spirit could not hear his loud beating heart—
#Run!!!!# The spirit suddenly screeched as it ran straight towards him, raising its scythe again.
———
With his back against the wall in a dark pathway, the Captain of the knights looked down at a golden locket with an emotional smile. Inside it was the picture of the very people he was doing this for. It was because of them that he kept coming back, despite the failures. Their existence was even what gave him the strength to walk back out of the cave each time. And because of them, he would go through any means necessary to ensure their safety... Anything at all.
'The additional minutes are over. That thing's witch powers must have been worn down enough.'
Hitting the tip of the hard silver scabbard of his sword, on the ground, he stood up straight, clearing any hint of emotion from his eyes.
"Assemble." He called his subordinates to order.
It had already been more than an hour since they had gathered the outcasts and dumped them in the nest of the profane, 'spider witch'. The time had been extended a little just to be cautious.
From his former attempts at slaying the creature, the Captain had found out its wretched tricks.
Although the creature was indeed scary, the Captain had noticed that whenever he and his squad wanted to fight it, they would gradually be overwhelmed an irrational volume of fear from the spirit.
That fear was like a mist that it uses to surround itself, before forcing it into the minds of victims till they would inevitably cease fighting, and even lay their own lives down with horror. That fear was also what the spirit uses to sense people... after its eyes had been stabbed out by the Captain.
The Captain had felt that the fear the spirit weaved originated from looking in its eyes, alas no.
But in the place of that, he discovered something important. That was the fact that since the spirit now had to use its ability to both fight and navigate, it dropped out of prolonged fights faster, to run away and escape. And this was even more so when it is surrounded by many figures at once that needed to be eliminated.
With the amount of people they had squeezed into that cave, the spirit's energy was bound to have been warn out by a lot. It was over a hundred and fifty after all.
Now, all they had to do was close all the possible escape routes of the spirit so they could finally corner and kill it.
After setting up knights at different parts of the mountain the cave was in, the Captain and his team soon reached the spider-witch's cave.
A dozen of the knights ran forward to move the massive slab that they had used to trap their useless townsfolk in before making way for the Captain.
"What are you doing Judas? Be careful." The Captain warned as one of the dozen men moved ahead.
Curious, one of them had peeked into the dark cave to find the monster.
But with a questioning frown, the peeking man looked ready to divulge the fact that the spider-witch wasn't in her cave anymore. But then he suddenly froze before falling on the ground.
In a hurry, the knights pulled out the man's unconscious body out from inside the dark cave. Only to find out that Judas was in fact not unconscious, but dead. His head had been sliced cleanly off his neck, with blood pouring out like a stream.
"Fallback and regroup!" The Captain yelled an order. They were about to move when one of them suddenly yelled in panic as something grabbed his leg.
Looking down, the knights saw what could be a monster staring up at them through one bloodshot eye.
He looked human, but was covered in blood, with one of his arms hanging loosely to his body, and his legs looking mangled. The other eye this man had seemed to have been punctured through also.
Looking at the creature, the minds of the knights refused to believe that it was human. How was it still alive after losing so much blood and being with such deadly wounds?
Was he a zombie? Human capabilities were often unrealistic when all of their minds and souls had been poured into the singular purpose of self preservation... of survival.
'How is one of them still alive? Did we come to early?' The Captain had a grim look on his face. That hair colour... It looked like —
The bloodied man suddenly opened his mouth wide and bit the leg of the man he was holding.
But actually, he had just bitten off the crystal that was embedded in the ankle of the man's boots and swallowed it.
Meanwhile, the knight shivered as he tried to pull his leg back. But try as he might, he could not remove his leg from the bloodied monster's grasp. It was like... like he was being weakened by fear.
While the rest continued to watch the strange scene as another knight came to help, a black scythe suddenly swiped out of the darkness and decapitated the shaking warrior.
Walking over the accursed child's battered body with her scythe legs taking an unconscious scratch at one of his elbows, the spirit, with all eight limbs intact, came out of the cave to face the group of knights.
"Ready!" There had been a few minor setbacks, but the Captain was still set on taking back the spirits head.
"If you lose your composure, you'll die faster, if you die, you'll make this even harder than it already is for the rest of us!" The Captain quickly warned as the spider spirit slowly approached them.
The nearest knight to the spirit carried his sword and shield in the air in preparation when something suddenly touched his boots.
"Your crystal...?" Ikky asked as blood spilled out of his mouth.
That fraction of a second it took for the knight to clear his startled mind was the time it took for his head to also get lopped off.
When the now headless corpse fell on him, he took what he wanted and crawled away.
He may have felt sorry for those people he had pushed into the evil spirit's embrace of death, but not these knights.
Oh, they deserved what they were getting. They deserved more even.
But,
'It's not enough. My body doesn't feel anything from these tiny crystals!'
The people in the Realm Of Augury where Sins too, so they should have crystals embedded inside their bodies. Right?
If his crappy knowledge served him right, they should.
They should have bigger, prettier, tastier crystals.
"... Now, how to dig it out?"